The police here rescued a 16-year-old girl, who had been abducted from West Bengal, following the intervention of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). The police and the Childline authorities swung into action soon after they got the message from the NCPCR, and rescued the girl from a rented house at Vazhakkad on Saturday.
The girl from South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, had been abducted by a man hailing from the same State, and was found pregnant. She was produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), and was shifted to a shelter home.
The police slapped a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against the man, who had come to Kerala for work. The father of a three-year-old girl, the man had kept the minor girl as his “wife”.
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The police traced the girl with the help of Childline volunteers soon after getting the NCPCR letter dated January 2, which said that “a minor girl has been trafficked and kept confined somewhere in Malappuram district”.
The West Bengal police had filed an FIR (131/21) at Dholahat police station on November 4, 2021, under IPC Sections 363 and 365 for kidnapping of the girl. The NCPCR intervened in the case following a complaint by Mission Mukti Foundation.
It was found that the man, who abducted the girl, had been married to a woman who later eloped with another man from West Bengal. He had his three-year-old girl from that woman.
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Childline officials Anwar Karakkadan, Muhsin Pari and Salma Suhana, who helped the police trace the minor girl, said that it was not the first time that a girl was abducted a brought to Kerala under the guise of a family member. Similar cases were reported in which minor girls were brought to Kerala along with the men coming for labour from West Bengal.
They said that people should exercise more vigil against the abuse of children under various pretexts.